COMMUNITY STORIES
Featured
By Ben Bennett
“It’s just a Palestinian’s addiction. You just know [when] you go to your parents’ house, you’ll have a couple big jugs of homemade olive oil.”
By Kenza Bousseloub
At three cafés in South Philadelphia, North African men gather for coffee, company and Kabyle music.
By Ben Bennett
The 2030 census will include a new racial category: ‘MENA’. Until then, these interactive maps, based on data from the Pew Research Center, show where some of Philadelphia’s SWANA communities have settled.
By Gawhara Abou-eid
The farm supports immigrant and refugee families in Norristown, as well as other residents, through hands-on agriculture, nutrition education and culturally relevant crop production.
By Gawhara Abou-eid
Maintaining heritage language fluency is not only a personal effort but also a community challenge. Limited language programming in schools and mosques means families often bear the burden alone. That’s where Bilingual Counseling Assistants become vital.
By Ben Bennett
The three organizers of Philly Climbers for Palestine want to continue fundraising and directly support the people in Gaza.
By Kenza Bousseloub
What makes Neshaminy State Park such a popular gathering place for SWANA families?
By Ragad Ahmad
Every Sunday night, Fatih Ahmed commits what locals consider football treason. From his Doylestown living room, deep in Eagles territory, he roots for the Giants with the kind of blind devotion that none of his friends can understand.
By Gawhara Abou-eid
The Hebron facility had long played a crucial role in preserving heirloom seed varieties critical to Palestinian foodways and climate resilience. With preservation in the West Bank increasingly endangered, diaspora-based efforts have stepped in to continue the work.
By Lauren Abunassar
Community gatherings like “Acts of Resistance” become a way to reject the notion that our grief or our desires for freedom and witness are singular—an understanding that is a key piece of reclaiming agency.
By Ragad Ahmad
For Palestinian-Americans in Philadelphia, this summer's FIFA Club World Cup offered a glimpse of what the sports world could look like as Lincoln Financial Field was transformed into an unexpected space for cultural celebration and political solidarity.
By Elissa Odeh
“Aside from just trying to survive, you’re also dealing with culture shock, the expectations of living in America, language barriers and isolation. All of it only delays the healing process.”
By Ragad Ahmad
At the heart of this transnational olive oil network sits one man: Jamal Al-Zaghloul, who has earned the nickname "the FedEx of the West Bank" among Philadelphia-area Palestinian families.
By Ragad Ahmad
For Saif Manna of Manna Bakery, his grandmothers represented contrasting approaches to Palestinian cuisine, and each influenced his food philosophy.
By Elissa Odeh
Organized by church volunteers, the festival has become a highlight of the year for both the Lebanese American community and Philadelphians interested in Middle Eastern culture.
By Elissa Odeh
At Majdal Bakery, Kenan Rabah strives to serve Philly a taste of his heritage, helping him reshape his identity from one lost in political conflict to one rooted in history and tradition.
By Elissa Odeh
For Samar Dahleh, the community element of tatreez is what draws her to it the most. “You are supposed to sit like the khaltos (aunties) used to, do tatreez together, chatter and enjoy a cup of tea,” she said.
By Elissa Odeh
With the sighting of the crescent moon in the sky, Ramadan began on February 28 in the United States. Ramadan is the ninth month of the lunar calendar and the holiest month of the year for Muslims, in which they fast from dawn until sunset, abstaining from food and drink and breaking their fast with a meal known as iftar
by Elissa Odeh
Philadelphia’s own celebrity chef, 29-year-old Lebanese American, Miled Finianos, founder of Habibi Supper Club, is known for his high-end communal monthly pop-up dinners with a Levantine-inspired menu that introduces a new aspect of Lebanese cuisine.
by Jade Doumani
While in recent years Philadelphia has seen a handful of Yemeni restaurants open, Bryn Mawr-based husband and wife entrepreneurs Hamza Shaikh and Farah Khan noticed a distinct lack of a space in the city dedicated to celebrating Yemen’s rich coffee heritage. Now, the couple have decided to change that. In early 2025, they are slated to open the city’s first Yemeni specialty coffee shop: Haraz Coffee House at 3421 Chestnut Street in University City.
As Christmas approaches in Philadelphia, traditional American Christmas customs abound, including shopping frenzies and bulk Amazon hauls. Yet, these customs often feel foreign to the city’s Palestinian Christians who find themselves longing for the traditions they observed in Palestine.